Reprisal killings as a routine

ON Tuesday, July 24, 2007, the residents of Omi Adio — a suburb of Ibadan— experienced a virtual hell on earth. Mobile policemen launched a massive onslaught on the town, killing, maiming and making arrests. Four of the residents were reportedly killed while 40 others were arrested. For the police, it was a reprisal attack carried out to avenge the burning down of the town’s police station by enraged youths who were protesting against the arrest, torture and subsequent death of a commercial vehicle driver.

ACCORDING to the residents’ account, the refusal of the driver to play ball by paying a bribe of N20 was the cause of it all. An infuriated policeman slapped the driver who gave an instant reply. The driver was subdued, arrested, locked up and subjected to all sorts of ill-treatment. The death of the driver shortly after his release was the source of anger of the rampaging youths who torched the police station.

SEPTEMBER 26 is a month the people of Afiesere in Delta State will always remember. It was the month in which they had in full measure their own dosage of police brutality.

RECENTLY, a similar incident occurred on a much wider scale at Ogaminana in the Adavi Local Government area of Kogi State. It was another case of reprisal attack by policemen and the circumstances were not markedly different from those that ignited the ruthless reaction of the police at Omi Adio and Afiesere. Figures of the deaths that resulted from the attack on Ogaminana varies widely, from 15 to 50. About 90 houses, 19 cars and 90 motorcycles were reported to have been set ablaze while 150 market stalls were destroyed by men who were trained and are being paid to protect life and property.

ACCORDING to reports, youths of the area were protesting against what they viewed as police’s protection for criminals. The youth, it was said, had apprehended some trucks carrying products that, they claimed, were stolen from a mining company near the town.

But rather than siding with the youth, the police, the reports stated further, descended on them. But the police gave a different version of the tragic event. They claimed that “some hoodlums” attacked mobile policemen deployed in the area to protect the workers of a company, killing two policemen while one was abducted.

THE police public relations officer for the state is reported to have blamed the youth for the calamity that befell them. His justification for the invasion was that the policemen were searching for their abducted colleague. A catalogue of similar incidents in different parts of the country can hardly be exhaustive. In each case, the misbehaviour of a handful of people — usually the social miscreants — was viewed as a communal crime for which the entire community was mindlessly pounded.

THE Nigeria Police have at different times mounted campaigns to enhance its acceptance by the Nigerian public. Their constant slogan presents the policeman as a friend who needs the cooperation and support of the citizenry to make a success of his constitutional duties. The top echelons of the Nigeria Police have always promised to bring about a turn-around of the force but the performance and conduct of police personnel have been more alienating than inviting. Drivers, conductors, passengers and passers-by still get shot by policemen angered by the refusal of commercial vehicle drivers to pay the mandatory checkpoint ‘toll’. Cases of accidental discharge resulting in unwarranted deaths have become innumerable.

WHILE some of these incidents can be excused as aberrations on the part of misbehaving individual policemen, what can be the rationale behind a pre-planned and collective action by supposedly disciplined men who filed out of their barracks or stations to wreak havoc on entire communities? Is this a sensible line of action for an organisation bedevilled by image problem? Does it positively project an establishment that is constantly striving to improve its perception in the eyes of the public? The Police Public Relations Officer through his comment on the Ogaminana incident did further damage to the badly battered image of the Nigeria Police. The impression he has given is that the people got their just deserts for their collective misbehaviour. Is that to say that the invasion of the community received the blessing of the state police command? His argument that the policemen who devastated Ogaminana went in search of their abducted colleague does not hold water. Is it part of police strategy to gun down people and set houses ablaze in the process of searching for abducted persons?

THE savage onslaught on the Ogaminana community was ill-considered. It was a very unreasonable reaction from the police. Even if it was the ‘hoodlums’ that first launched an attack on the policemen, as they claimed, is mass destruction the right step to take? It is unfortunate that instead of calling into play their expertise in detecting crime and bringing criminals to justice, the police opted for a much more reprehensible course of action.

IT is common knowledge that perpetrators of criminal acts do not usually wait to face the consequences of their action. There is no doubt that most, if not all, of the victims of the police’s reprehensible action were innocent.

EVEN between the disciplined forces, reprisal attacks have not been an uncommon occurrence. At the end of the last face-off between soldiers and policeman in Lagos, an entire police barracks lay in ruins. The horrendous events that took place at Odi and Zaki Biam will remain etched in the memories of the people of the areas for as long as they live.

A major hallmark of the uniformed services is discipline. The frequency at which supposedly disciplined men barge into communities to kill and maim the people they are being paid to protect is disturbing. It is a clear evidence of indiscipline. A decisive end should be put to this routine of reprisal killings.

SOLUDO'S ‘COIN-FUSING’ COINAGE

THE Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Chukwuma Soludo, is a man of great resourcefulness, no doubt. His enterprising and mercurial management skills are already creating mega financial institutions on the continent.

WHEN Professor Soludo coined the idea of re-introducing coins into the Nigerian economy, only a few Nigerians were convinced that he would bring a magical solution to the coins issue. But it appears that the majority of sceptical Nigerians are right to doubt the effectiveness of Soludo’s wand this time round.

ACCORDING to reports, those who have truckloads of coins in their homes could not find anywhere to spend them. People do not accept them anymore. Even the banks, which pay them out to customers, do not accept them, when the customers decide to pay them in.

A Nigerian who wanted to play the Samaritan offered some coins to a beggar; he did not get applause for his action; all he got in return was a heap of curses. The beggar had mistaken his generosity for punishment. He was said to have complained loudly that the Nigerian Samaritan wanted to add more coin-fusion to his confusion.

IT is not certain that Professor Soludo heard the beggar. But the truth is that there is too much confusion in the land to add more coin-fusion to it. The CBN governor may still need to activate his wand to coin-vince those Nigerians who think his “coinage” cannot buy them Cointreau, a clear liqueur flavoured with orange.